ACLU: More blacks busted for pot

The American Civil Liberties Union claims Stark County is among the worst offenders in racial disparity involving marijuana. A new study claims a black person here is seven times more likely to be busted for marijuana possession.

The American Civil Liberties Union says blacks in Stark County are seven times more likely to be arrested for having marijuana despite “roughly equal” use by whites.

And, the ACLU says, Stark is the third worst of the state’s 88 counties in targeting blacks for having pot, behind only Columbiana (where blacks are 13.8 times more likely to be arrested than whites) and Allen County (13.2 times more likely).

The Repository did its own examination of marijuana cases on file with area municipal courts. The newspaper found that a higher percentage of blacks were cited for marijuana possession compared to whites based on population figures.

The newspaper was unable to verify the ACLU’s “seven times more likely” claim. The newspaper did not have access to the FBI statistics or the ACLU’s formula.

‘ENFORCE AS THEY SEE IT’

Local police, meanwhile, say they’re arresting people they find with pot, regardless of race.

Those people are charged with drug-possession violations whenever and wherever an officer notices someone with illegal drugs, said Capt. Dave Davis, who heads the Canton Police Department’s Detective Bureau. The officers “enforce it as they see it.”

The ACLU says the numbers show differently.

Shakyra Diaz of the ACLU’s Cleveland office said the numbers in its report were pulled from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report and placed against U.S. Census records from 2000 through 2010.

“These are the numbers that law-enforcement agencies use to report to the federal government,” she said. (The numbers are submitted voluntarily by participating law agencies.)

Canton Municipal Court records, however, show actual marijuana possession cases. Canton Municipal serves the cities of Canton, North Canton and Louisville and the townships of Lake, Plain, Nimishillen, Osnaburg, Pike, Sandy and Canton.

In 2008, court records show more blacks were arrested than whites on marijuana possession charges. About 49 percent of the cases in the court system involved black suspects. About 47 percent involved white suspects.

Court records from the years following, however, show more whites than blacks being charged with marijuana possession. In 2010, suspects in 58.6 percent of the marijuana possession cases were white; black suspects made up another 35.7 percent, with the remainder being people of other races.

Blacks made up 9.8 percent of the population of the areas administered by Canton Municipal Court.

Comparing the area’s population to the number of court records is not a perfect comparison. The court records include those who live outside the area who were arrested here.

WHO SMOKES POT?

Municipal court records from all three court systems in Stark County show more whites are arrested than blacks for marijuana possession.

But while the ACLU says marijuana use is “roughly equal,” the national survey on which it bases the report says a higher percentage of blacks smoke pot than whites. The ACLU’s report “The War on Marijuana in Black and White: Billions of Dollars Wasted on Racially Biased Arrests,” cites data on marijuana use from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ “2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Summary of National Findings.”

Page 2 of 3 -
The survey has been conducted by the federal government since 1971 “through face-to-face interviews with a representative sample of the population,” the survey states.

But it shows that more blacks than whites ages 12 and older said they used illicit drugs each year between 2002 and 2010.

The numbers showing which race admits to having smoked pot are close. The survey lists 10.7 percent of blacks said they had used illicit drugs within the previous month compared to whites, 9.1 percent of which said they used.

Canton police have targeted specific neighborhoods where the number of crimes reported is highest.

The department uses “intelligence-led policing,” which involves the collection of data to determine patterns.

The information has also resulted in the organized raids such as Operation Push Back, which used information-established “target locations along with persons and vehicles of interest with the goal of impacting the areas most in need of assistance,” Davis said in a Sept. 8, 2012, Repository article.

Those areas included the Newton/Shorb area and the areas around Gibbs and Belden elementary schools. The first raid left police with an undisclosed amount of marijuana, a digital scale used to weigh it and prescription drugs.

WHERE TROUBLE IS FOUND

Last year, marijuana arrests in Canton were the lowest in at least five years for both races.

Lt. John Gabbard, who heads the Canton Police Department’s Special Investigations Unit, said that he believes the arrests are down because crime in general is down citywide. More police officers on the job, intelligence-led policing and cooperation among city, county, state and federal law enforcement officers could be to thank for that, he said.

Gabbard said, too, that the city’s population is so diverse, “It would be tough to say a neighborhood that would be high in crime could be narrowed down (to race.) In Canton, I don’t think you find a neighborhood where you have just one race that you can identify it by.”

Police have identified one area highest in crime.

Gabbard said a 1.7-square mile area from the Newton/ Shorb Avenue NW neighborhoods to the Gibbs Avenue NE and Gibbs Elementary School areas accounts for the largest chunk of violent crime — about 25 percent in 2012.

Canton, he noted, consists of a total of about 22 or 23 square miles.

Police were able to identify the area after gathering data based on location of crimes. Gabbard said they “analyze calls for service and other criminal information regarding reports and observations of police officers and we map that out. That map is completely geographical.

“We have no focus on age, race or other demographics. We only analyze areas based on geographical information that comes from crime reports. We map those areas out and then we focus our attention on those specific areas. Being that it’s information-based, we do criminal interdiction in those areas, based on just geography and times that those crimes occur.

Page 3 of 3 -
“You can look at the population and that doesn’t tell the whole story. You (need to) look at who visits Canton and who comes here from somewhere else. How many people are here during the day? Looking at the residential makeup and demographic of Canton doesn’t always tell the whole story.”

ELSEWHERE IN STARK COUNTY

In Massillon, far fewer blacks are arrested on marijuana charges with regard to population than in Alliance.

In Massillon, 882 whites were arrested on misdemeanor marijuana charges from 2008 to June 2013, according to statistics provided by Randy Gonzalez, chief deputy clerk of the Canton Municipal Court. On the same misdemeanor charges, 158 blacks were arrested, showing that more than four times more whites have been arrested on marijuana charges than blacks.

Felony marijuana charges totaled 972 for whites during the same time frame and 181 blacks in the Massillon court jurisdiction. Massillon’s court includes people living in the city as well as Bethlehem, Perry, Sugar Creek, Tuscarawas, Lawrence and Jackson townships.

Massillon’s population in 2010 of 32,141 was about 9 percent black and 87 percent white, the census shows.

Alliance’s population in 2010 was 22,322, with 10.5 percent being black and 84.6 percent white. Its court covers those living in the city and the townships of Lexington, Marlboro, Paris and Washington.

In Alliance, 386 white people and 187 black people were arrested on misdemeanor marijuana charges from 2008 to present, the same time frame as Massillon. For felony charges, 555 whites and 234 blacks were arrested in Alliance from 2008 to present.

Alliance Police Lt. John Jenkins said police look at the city by zones, all of which get attention without regard to race.

“We have some zones that the majority of calls are coming from, so we’re going to have more contact with people in certain areas. But I really would hesitate to break that down by race,” he said, noting that Alliance is a diverse city in which neighborhoods can’t be characterized by race. “It all comes back to the calls we get and the contacts we make when we respond to those calls.”

“I believe violent crime in general is down, but certain crimes are on the rise,” he said. “We’re seeing more meth. But marijuana is always going to be here.”